The reason why the 2020 election was controversial

Jun 23, 2022 Features / Columnists, Freddie Kissoon

---

Kaieteur News – Here are the words of long-standing GECOM Commissioner, Vincent Alexander, in the newspaper recently: “Those statements of poll (SOPs) are no longer a source in relation to who won or lost the elections. Their relevance and usefulness in that regard were nullified by the recount that produced statements of recount that were relied on for the purpose of declaring the results.”
There is a huge fault in that observation that actually renders it a comical outlook. The flaw is so conspicuous that any school child can pick it up. But before we point it out, a word about the characteristics of Homo sapiens is relevant. By the time a person’s thought patterns are formed, that person knows human characteristics make a long list, one of which is selfishness.
Any victory in a game of cricket, soccer, basketball, etc., becomes controversial if a captain or coach decides to be wicked and make a damning accusation which has no basis. Any beauty competition can descend into chaos if one of the losers decides to be mischievous and mouth off a nasty fiction. In an age of social media, the ensuing controversy can become tsunamic.
Let’s quote Alexander once more: “This situation has moved me to pen this letter of factual clarification to provide those who are interested in the facts, and ultimately the truth, with information that may aid them in their search for the truth.” In Guyana, facts, truths, values, mores, standards, etc., since March 2020 have all become what beauty is – residing in the eyes of the beholder.
Today in surreal, irrational Guyana, people who are into hatred, into demonising others, into racial preaching, into political wickedness, proclaim facts and truths that are into pathetic fact, repellant fictions. Just pick up the newspapers and you see writers proclaiming their love of humanity, and embrace of democracy and they are the biggest inciters whose fictions are overbearing.
One of the most sickening characteristic of Guyanese society is that those who advocate Guyana to stop racial preaching and begin racial healing are themselves contributors to the deteriorating racial landscape. This double standard is not just an episodic appeal, it is a daily output. Just read the editorials and letters in the press.
We come now to the facts, the real facts, the objective facts which may not be facts for those who do not want to accept the realities that are inescapable in the world around us. The reason why Mr. Alexander says the SOPs are not important any longer because the statements of recount have rendered them outdated is because there was a recount. But there should never have been a recount.
There was no need for a recount of the March 2020 votes because there was no incident that made a recount necessary. The system worked on polling day, the voters were transparently cast, the votes were transparently counted, the observers performed credibly.
A recount was made into a reality because one of the captains, one of the coaches, one of the beauty contestants refused to accept the results of the process, refused to accept the outcome and instigated a controversy. We come now to a second recount. There wasn’t one. Why? Because after the first recount, there were plans to reject its outcome.
This columnist has written twice on information provided by trusted confidential sources in the APNU+AFC fortress that after the recount showed a PPP victory, the stratagem was for the three PNC commissioners to resign thus postponing an official GECOM meeting to declare the result of the recount.
Why that did not happen? The Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo made a phone call to Guyana. There was no second recount. The rest is history. The SOPs of the March 2020 general elections in Guyana is a piece of paper that is viewed with trepidation by those who lost. That paper is the key to understanding why a recount was unnecessary and why the recount was a stratagem to reject what was on that paper.
The SOPs revealed and to this day still reveal that the APNU+AFC lost the election. We did not have a recount of several national elections that was held in CARICOM after the Guyanese poll in March 2020. Why? Because losers accepted the result. Last Sunday, President Macron became a minority president after his party lost a parliamentary majority. There was no recount. Why? Because Macron accepted the result.
You can administer the smoothest sport contest, beauty contest, general election, etc. However, if selfish souls want to create trouble, they will and controversy will be born. It is easier to create a controversy than kiss the palm of your hand.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this newspaper.)

---

---